


Lament of the not so Highborn

by Dlxm950, Tsargus (Dlxm950)



Series: Story of the Frost Lich [1]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Death, F/F, Insanity, Lost Love, Major Character Undeath, Sad, Sad Ending, Undeath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 01:44:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18713986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dlxm950/pseuds/Dlxm950, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dlxm950/pseuds/Tsargus
Summary: Jaina watched from afar as the love of her life was lowered into the ground.Another person she had failed.Another person in her life she had let down by her inaction.Another funeral she watched from a distance.She watched as Vereesa threw in the first bit of dirt, then Alleria, and countless more. More hands more dirt. Every person in Sylvanas life paying tribute to her memory. All her friends and family honoring her sacrifice for king and country.All except Jaina.





	Lament of the not so Highborn

**Author's Note:**

> This is the story of The Frost Lich

When she had first heard the news she hadn’t believed it. She scoffed at the very idea. Sylvanas was the best ranger in Quel'thalas, her marksmanship famed across the kingdoms, her name feared by all the elves enemies. 

 

So when a scribe arrived in Theramore with a letter claiming that Sylvanas was dead she refused to even entertain the thought.

 

Yet as days turned into weeks with no communication from her wife she began to doubt.

 

Then the condolences began to arrive.

 

Week after week, month after month, they came. Noble families, distant cousins, close friends. 

 

All offering their support. 

 

As though she were a widow who had just lost her wife. She wrote them all back. 

 

Every. 

 

Single. 

 

Letter. 

 

She asked them to stop worrying her so. That there cruel jokes would not work on her. That their word would not shake her certainty. 

 

That Sylvanas would be home any day now.

 

None wrote back. They didn’t need to.

 

Words began to drift into her ears from the corners of every room.

 

Delusioned.

 

Heartbroken.

 

Denial.

 

Yet even as these words flowed through the kingdoms she did not falter.

 

Sylvanas would be home any day now. She would come into the keep on horseback. She would undoubtedly be injured and once those were attended to she would gather Jaina in her arms and all would be well.

 

She had the servants set Sylvanas place at the table every meal.

 

And on the third day of the second week of the fifth month that Jaina waited for Sylvanas, an elf on horseback entered the keep. 

 

The news had Jaina running through the castle as fast as she could. Her heart beating with joy and relief.

 

She arrived at the stable ground in record time.

 

It was not Sylvanas that greeted her.

 

Alleria looked horrible.

 

Her hair was in knots. Her eyes sunken with bags and rimmed red. Her ears pinned as far back as they could.

 

She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Rather it was Jaina who began to speak. 

 

A gentle murmuring of no escaping her lips. Building in intensity as Alleria stepped closer and closer. Eventually screaming in sobs as she was held against the older elf. 

 

“She can’t be.  _ She can’t be! _ ” Jaina yelled at the tops of her lungs. She kicked and slapped and punched but Alleria held strong.

 

Eventually Jaina collapsed.

 

She could not remember when. Only that it occurred once she had no more voice with witch to scream and no more tears with witch to cry. 

 

When she awoke the next day she felt nothing.

 

Empty.

 

Alleria told her of the funeral preparations. How they would be having it in windrunner village. How they would perform the ceremony at noon when the sun was highest in the sky. 

 

How they expected Jaina to lead it.

 

She did not respond, her mind elsewhere.

 

Her nights from then on were spent in the library. Old tomes that had long been forgotten dragged up to see the light once more. 

 

Books of sacrifice and blood. 

 

She read of the val’kyr, beings who helped the dead reach the other side, and possibly, held the power to stop them. 

 

She scoured old troll manuscripts telling of Bwonsamdi, the Loa of death, whose power could be attained, for a price. 

 

She studied the notes on the power of the Lich King, words of power that spoke to the dead, and forgotten spells cast aside for fear of their nature.

 

She learned it all. Verse for verse. 

 

Then she set out for Quel’thalas.

  
  


She arrived the day of the funeral but did not attend. 

 

Her plans required secrecy. 

 

She would wait until dark. When all the mourners had left and the area quiet.

 

So she waited. 

 

Listened from a nearby bush as family members spoke Sylvanas virtues.

 

Listened as Vereesa and Alleria cried for the soul of yet another dead sibling. 

 

Listened as the last note of Lament of the Highborne faded into the air.

 

Still she waited.

 

Once the moon was high into the sky and she was sure no one would interrupt she made her move.

 

She drew a transmutation circle on the ground with arcane chalk. She made four points of focus and in each placed a memento. 

 

The first their wedding ring. A symbol of her heart.

 

The second Sylvanas diary. A symbol of her mind.

 

The third Sylvanas Bow. A symbol of her body.

 

The fourth was the most important, Sylvanas necklace. A symbol of her soul. 

 

The circle drawn. The objects in place. Jaina began to chant. 

 

She drew upon the powers of death. 

 

Called the Val’kyr to show her love the path.

 

Called on Bwonsamdi to open the door.

 

Called the fell magic to give her the power to see it through. 

 

The world began to shake and the sky began to darken. The circle glowed violently as a crack began to form in the air. 

 

Jaina felt as though a thousand bolts of lightning were striking her at once. It was to much. To much power. To much energy. Yet she persisted.

 

The ground shook harder.

 

The sky filled with thunder and lightning.

 

Rain pelted the land.

 

And the crack grew wider. 

 

Then it all went wrong.

 

Jaina found herself being tackled to the ground with her arms behind her back. She screamed at whoever it was to let her go. She was so close. So close.

 

The ground slowly stopped shaking.

 

The sky no longer rumbled.

 

The crack in the air sealed shut.

 

The world returned to as it had been.

 

Then she fell unconscious.

  
  


“-at was she thinking!” She heard a feminine voice say to her right.

 

“She wasn’t.” Another feminine voice responded.

 

Jaina let out a groan. 

 

Both voices stopped immediately. 

 

Jaina was both glad they had and disappointed they hadn’t. 

 

Once she opened her eyes she came face to face with Alleria and Alexstrasza.

 

Alleria was far more composed than the last time she saw her. Her hair was done up in a tight braid that fell over her left shoulder. Her eyes were no longer red rimmed and lacked any bags hanging below them. 

 

They were however quite angry.

 

“What in the name of the sunwell were you doing Jaina?!” Alleria hissed out.

 

“I-I-” She tried to answer.

 

“No don’t talk. If you do i’m afraid I may do something I’ll regret.” Alleria said angrily. 

 

Jaina felt a furry taker hold of her mind.

 

“Regret? Regret?! I hold not regrets! I was so close. If  _ you _ had not interrupted me I would have succeeded and Sylvanas would be standing with us.” She hissed.

 

Alleria looked stunned for a moment before it settled into cold fury.

 

“Leave.” She said.

 

Jaina didn’t hesitate.

 

She had better things to do then argue with her sister in law.

  
  


Anduin watched as the other Alliance leaders bickered. 

 

“We could fall back to the forests of Lordaeron.” Genn suggested.

 

“We could but that would leave a direct path open for her to reach Quel’thalas.” Lor'themar countered. 

 

Both men looked to Anduin.

 

He gave a sigh and rubbed his brow. 

 

“We should break for today. We have reached an impasse and to continue would do no more than break our heads against walls.”

 

Both men nodded, if a bit reluctantly on Genn’s behalf, and left the meeting room.

 

Anduin looked to the map. 

 

The Alliance was holding strong from Lordaeron to the sea yet the Frost Lich would not stop her assault. Day in and day out the scourge pushed against their defenses. Their moral was running thin and there supplies even thinner. A part of him thought to attempt peace but he knew it would not happen. 

 

Altogether the Frost Lich's demands were not unreasonable. (There was a very large set of quotation marks on that as anything to do with undeath was beyond the realms of normalcy). Access to her wife's burial ground so she could raise her from the dead. Reunited with her lover she would take her armies back to Northrend and leave them in peace. 

 

The problem was the elves. 

 

They would have none of it and he understood why.

 

Sylvanas Windrunner was a hero to her people. The champion of their defenses. The beacon of light that guided them through some of the darkest periods of their existence. The very thought of allowing the commander of the undead onto their leads was heretical at best, let alone to raise their most famous warrior. 

 

Their would, unfortunately, be no peace.

 

He simply prayed that their defenses lasted.

  
  


The Horde had joined their fight. 

 

Sweeter words had not reached Anduin's ear since the beginning of the Frost Lich’s assault. With the combined arms of the Alliance and Horde the scourge were pushed back further and further south. They had recaptured most of the conquered land and were pleasantly surprised to find much of it very much intact. 

 

They had just recaptured a farm and found it’s crops still growing. 

 

“Why is this all still here? The last time the scourge invaded the land they took was ruined for years. Some of it still is.” Lor'themar said.

 

“That is not her goal.” Alexstrasza responded. “The last time the Scourge invaded it was under the Lich King. He seeked nothing more than death for everyone and everything. The Frost Lich, however, holds no such desires. Her goal, no matter how delusioned it may be, is to reunite with her most precious loved one.” She continued. 

 

“No matter her goal the fact remains that she will not be allowed to succeed.” Alleria said strongly.

 

Anduin sighed as he heard the beginnings of an argument long dragged out. A part of him understood why Alleria refused to allow it to happen. The loss of a sibling, an family at all, was hard to swallow. Yet part of him also felt for Jaina no matter how twisted her thoughts had become. 

 

At the heart of it she just wanted her love back. And he could relate to that. 

 

After the Broken Shore he feared for his father health. He was in a coma for months as his body tried to fight the fell magic that infested it. 

 

Anduin counted his blessings every day after his father woke up.

 

His father had, of course, thrust the reigns of leadership onto him when it was announced by the court physician that his father was unfit to rule. But those feelings of resentment had fallen away as his father assisted in easing him into the throne. 

 

His thoughts of revelry were cut short when a very panicked looking high elf ran out of a portal.

 

The elf was white as snow and shaking like a leaf. He barely managed to present a sealed letter to Anduin before collapsing into unconsciousness. 

 

He looked as the other leaders with concern but was met with silence. 

 

The letter would contain the most bitter information Anduin had heard since the beginning of the campaign.

 

The Frost Lich had circled around them as they pushed south.

 

Silvermoon was under siege. 

  
  


Jaina wasted no time in marching past Silvermoon to reach Windrunner village. The majority of her forces would proceed with the siege of Silvermoon while she and a handful of her most trusted scourge assisted her in raising her wife. 

 

The defenses in the village were pitiful at best. What gaggle of rangers that had been sent to secure the town were quickly dispatched. The villagers slaughtered and their bodies raised. 

 

The next part was the most difficult. 

 

She knew the news of her siege would quickly reach the enemy and that they would waist no time in coming to the elves aid. 

 

Nor would they be unaware of her true motivations. 

 

Her time was short.

 

She quickly drew the transmutation circle. She placed the items in the focusing circles.

 

And began to cast. 

 

This time, as the earth began to split and the wind began to howl, she felt no fatigue.

 

The crack in the air opened quickly and the moment it did she thrust Frostmourne into it. 

 

All at once the pieces began to fall into place. 

 

She could detect a portal opening a couple hundred yards away and hear the marching of boots. Yet as she watched the bright blue soul finish flowing into the grave, she could not find it within herself to care. 

 

There was a deep rumble in the ground as shouts of of anger and surprise came from behind her. 

 

“Distract them while I finish.” She told the deathknight to her right. 

 

She did not watch him node as he left.

 

Instead she watched with growing eagerness as her wife's body slowly rose threw the ground. 

 

Her skin was still flawless. It was a deep blue now but unscathed nonetheless. All at once the gathered magic around them flew into the body.

 

Sylvanas Windrunner woke with a scream.

 

Jaina immediately moved the comfort her wife but was stopped as a hand grabbed her shoulder and wrenched her back. 

 

Heavy magic damping irons were put on her wrists as her enemies moved towards her wife. 

 

She watched from afar as Alleria and Sylvanas spoke. The former pulling her sister into a hug after only a brief hesitation. They spoke for a while before Sylvanas indicated to Jaina. Alleria didn’t seem happy but nodded anyway.

 

“Sylvanas-” She started to greet her wife.

 

“Don’t.” Her wife interrupted her with a raised hand. “Just don’t.”

 

“My love I don’t understand. Are you not happy to see me?”

 

Sylvanas looked at her for a moment. Truly looked at her. Then shook her head.

 

“Look at what you’ve done to yourself. Do you not feel tired? Of death? Of all the carnage?”

 

“It was all for you. To bring you back. So we could be together again.” She tried desperately to convince her wife.

 

Sylvanas just shook her head and walked away.

 

She spoke quietly with Alleria.

 

Settled back into her grave sight.

 

Then Jaina watched as it burst into flames.

 

She screeched and thrashed and spat words vile enough to melt metal. She felt her magic grow. And grow and grow and grow.

 

The chains burst.

 

And she disappeared.

  
  


Jaina proceeded to burn everything in her path to the ground. 

 

She slaughtered children, mothers, fathers, soldiers, nobleman and peasants and rulers alike. 

 

She destroyed the ground on which she walked.

 

Then she stopped.

 

Halted her armies and pulled them all back to Northrend. 

 

No one knew why.

 

Some took it as a blessing. 

 

Others tried to find out and never returned. 

 

None missed the song that carried on the breeze. 

 

For all learned to beware,

 

The daughter of the sea.


End file.
